Ontario's long COVID strategy is 'insufficient' and 'unsustainable': ministry documents

are living with long COVID. The documents highlight possible effects on both the health-care system and the economy, with a survey suggesting more than 70 per cent of long COVID patients have had to take time off work.

The documents include an undated 34-page record withheld in its entirety because it would reveal cabinet deliberations, a two-part presentation to the health minister's office from the strategic policy branch in October, and an almost entirely redacted document from December titled, "Ministry of Health Proposed Announcement/Opportunity: Post COVID-19 Condition ."

"We will continue to work with our healthcare partners to better connect Ontarians to the high-quality care they need when they need it," she wrote. "There are challenges in the timing and design of that strategy, which are related to a poorly understood condition – there are probably multiple subtypes of long COVID – and an evolving definition, as our knowledge and understanding of it evolves with that."

A ministry briefing in October to the minister's office – in order to "seek minister's office approval on a proposed approach to supporting Ontarians with Post COVID-19 Condition" – said that standardization in diagnostic assessment, referral criteria and educational resources are essential to ensure consistency in care.

"This model is not sustainable and could result in little to no support for Ontarians with PCC," the briefing warned. "These clinics are currently at risk of closure due to lack of funding."Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare in Windsor, Ont., set up a long COVID clinic in the summer of 2021 by moving around some resources from other outpatient programs, but by the next summer it was increasing wait times for those other programs too much and they had to close it.

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